#Mining investment in India

[mirtoken]

Best Future of crypto currency in India

Cryptocurrencies have become a popular investment option in recent years, and India is no exception. With the growth of digital currencies and blockchain technology, more and more investors in India are considering investing in cryptocurrencies as a way to diversify their portfolios and potentially earn high returns. One platform that has gained popularity in the Indian market is MIR-Token.com, which offers a range of crypto investment options. In this article, we will explore the benefits of crypto investment in India with MIR-Token.com.

Diversification

Diversification is a key strategy in any investment portfolio. It is important to spread risk across different assets to minimize losses and maximize returns. One of the benefits of crypto investment with MIR-Token.com is that it allows investors to diversify their portfolios beyond traditional assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate.

With MIR-Token.com, investors can access a range of digital currencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and many others. This diversity of crypto assets allows investors to spread their risk across different currencies, minimizing the impact of any single currency's performance on their overall investment.

High Returns

Crypto investment can offer high returns compared to traditional investments. While it is true that the crypto market can be volatile, it is also true that many investors have made significant gains through crypto investment. For example, Bitcoin's price has increased from less than $1 in 2010 to over $50,000 in 2021, representing a huge return for early investors.

MIR-Token.com offers investors the potential for high returns through its crypto investment options. With its user-friendly platform and a wide range of digital currencies, MIR-Token.com enables investors to access the crypto market and take advantage of potential growth.

Low Fees

One of the benefits of crypto investment with MIR-Token.com is its low fees. Traditional investment options such as mutual funds and stocks often come with high fees, which can eat into investors' returns. In contrast, MIR-Token.com charges low fees for its crypto investment services.

This low fee structure is possible because crypto investment is a decentralized market, meaning there are no intermediaries such as brokers or middlemen. As a result, investors can save on fees and keep more of their returns.

Security

Security is a key concern for any investor, especially when it comes to digital currencies. The crypto market has been plagued by security breaches and hacking attacks in the past, leading to the loss of millions of dollars. However, MIR-Token.com takes security seriously and employs various measures to protect investors' assets.

MIR-Token.com uses advanced encryption and security protocols to ensure that investors' funds and personal information are secure. The platform also offers two-factor authentication and other security features to prevent unauthorized access to investors' accounts.

Ease of Use

One of the benefits of crypto investment with MIR-Token.com is its ease of use. The platform is designed to be user-friendly, even for investors who are new to the world of digital currencies. MIR-Token.com offers a simple and intuitive interface that allows investors to buy, sell, and trade digital currencies with ease.

Additionally, MIR-Token.com offers a range of educational resources to help investors learn more about crypto investment and the crypto market. These resources include articles, videos, and tutorials, which can help investors make informed investment decisions.

Liquidity

Liquidity is another benefit of crypto investment with MIR-Token.com. In traditional investments such as real estate or mutual funds, it can be difficult to access funds quickly in case of an emergency. However, crypto investments are highly liquid, meaning they can be bought and sold quickly.

With MIR-Token.com, investors can buy and sell digital currencies at any time, giving them the

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Source:- https://mirtoken.blogspot.com/2023/02/best-future-of-crypto-currency-in-india.html

[cloudminergpt]

Best Cloud Mining in India

[fatehbaz]

"The most fashionable bathing station in all Europe". British industrialists and American mining investors plotting the colonization of the Congo, while mingling at Ostend's seaside vacation resorts. Extracting African life to build European railways, hotels, palaces, suburbs, and other modern(ist) infrastructure. "Towards infinity!"

---

In 1885, King Leopold II achieved an astonishing and improbable goal: he claimed a vast new realm of his own devising, a conjury on a map called [...] the Congo Free State. [...] [A] fictional state owned by the king, ruled by decree, and run from Brussels from 1885 to 1908. [...] This was [...] a private entrepreneurial venture [for the king]. The abundance of ivory, timber, and wild rubber found in this enormous territory brought sudden and spectacular profits to Belgium, the king, and a web of interlocking concession companies. The frenzy to amass these precious resources unleashed a regime of forced labor, violence [millions of deaths], and unchecked atrocities for Congolese people. These same two and a half decades of contact with the Congo Free State remade Belgium [...] into a global powerhouse, vitalized by an economic boom, architectural burst, and imperial surge.

Congo profits supplied King Leopold II with funds for a series of monumental building projects [...]. Indeed, Belgian Art Nouveau exploded after 1895, created from Congolese raw materials and inspired by Congolese motifs. Contemporaries called it “Style Congo,” [...]. The inventory of this royal architecture is astonishing [...]. [H]istorical research [...] recovers Leopold’s formative ideas of architecture as power, his unrelenting efforts to implement them [...]. King Leopold II harbored lifelong ambitions to “embellish” and beautify the nation [...]. [W]ith his personal treasury flush with Congo revenue, [...] Leopold - now the Roi Batisseur ("Builder King") he long aimed to be - planned renovations explicitly designed to outdo Louis XIV's Versailles. Enormous greenhouses contained flora from every corner of the globe, with a dedicated soaring structure completed specifically to house the oversize palms of the Congolese jungles. [...]

---

The Tervuren Congo palace [...]. Electric tramways were built and a wide swath of avenue emerged. [...] [In and around Brussels] real estate developers began to break up lots [...] for suburban mansions and gardens. Between 1902 and 1910, new neighborhoods with luxury homes appeared along the Avenue [...]. By 1892, Antwerp was not only the port of call for trade but also the headquarters of the most profitable of an interlinking set of banks and Congo investment companies [...]. As Antwerp in the 1890s became once again the “Queen of the Scheldt,” the city was also the home of what was referred to as the “Queen of Congo companies.” This was the ABIR, or Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company, founded in 1892 with funds from British businessman “Colonel” John Thomas North [...].

Set on the seaside coast, Belgium’s Ostend was the third imperial cityscape to be remade by King Leopold [...] [in a] transformation [that] was concentrated between 1899 and 1905 [...]. Ostend encompassed a boomtown not of harbor and trade, like Antwerp, but of beachfront and leisure [...] [developed] as a "British-style" seaside resort. [...] Leopold [...] [w]as said to spend "as much time in Ostend as he did in Brussels," [...]. Ostend underwent a dramatic population expansion in a short period, tripling its inhabitants from 1870–1900. [...] Networks of steamers, trams, and railway lines coordinated to bring seasonal visitors in, and hotels and paved walkways were completed. [...] [A]nd Leopold’s favorite spot, the 1883 state-of-the-art racetracks, the Wellington Hippodrome. Referred to with an eye-wink as “the king incognito” (generating an entire genre of photography), visitors to the seaside could often see Leopold in his top hat and summer suit [...], riding his customized three-wheeled bicycle [...]. By 1900, Ostend’s expansion and enhancement made it known as “the Queen of the Belgian seaside resorts” and “the most fashionable bathing station in all Europe.” Opulence, convenience, and spectacle brought the Shah of Persia, American tycoons, European aristocrats, and Belgian elites, among others, to Ostend.

---

Leopold’s interventions and the Congo Free State personnel and proceeds played three pivotal and understudied roles in this transformation, all of which involved ABIR [British industrialists].

First, it was at Ostend that an early and decisive action was taken to structure the “red rubber” regime and set it in motion. In 1892, jurists such as [E.P.] had ruled, contravening [...] trade laws, that the king was entitled to claim the Congo as his domanial property [...]. Leopold [...] devised one part of that royal domain as a zone for private company concessions [...] to extract and export wild rubber.

Soon after, in 1892, King Leopold happened to meet the British “Colonel” John Thomas North at the Ostend Hippodrome. North, a Leeds-born mechanic [...] had made a fortune speculating on Chilean nitrates in the 1880s. He owned monopoly shares in nitrate mines and quickly expanded to acquire monopolies in Chilean freight railways, water supplies, and iron and coal mines. By 1890 North was a high-society socialite worth millions [...]. Leopold approached North at the Ostend racecourse to provide the initial investments to set up the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (ABIR). [...]

---

One visible sign of Ostend’s little-known character as Congo boomtown was the Royal Palace Hotel, a lavish property next to the king’s Royal Domain, which opened in 1899. With hundreds of rooms and a broad sweep of acreage along the beachfront, the palace “occupied the largest space of any hotel in Europe.” [...]

King Leopold met American mining magnate Thomas Walsh there, and as with North, the meeting proved beneficial for his Congo enterprise: Leopold enlisted Walsh to provide assessments of some of his own Congo mining prospects. The hotel was part of [...] [a major European association of leisure profiteers] founded in 1894, that began to bundle luxury tourism and dedicated railway travel, and whose major investors were King Leopold, Colonel North [...].

At the height of Congo expansionism, fin-de-siècle Antwerp embodied an exhilarated launch point [...]. Explorers and expeditioners set sail for Matadi after 1887 with the rallying call “Vers l’infini!” (“towards infinity!”) [...].

---

Text above by: Debora Silverman. "Empire as Architecture: Monumental Cities the Congo Built in Belgium". e-flux Architecture (Appropriations series). May 2024. At: e-flux.com/architecture/appropriations/608151/empire-as-architecture-monumental-cities-the-congo-built-in-belgium/ [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post was added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

[dailyanarchistposts]

When Elon Musk took over Twitter and the platform began to tank, the stock value plummeted, and people were leaving in droves, many of us thought he was just an arrogant doofus, a parasitic man-child who became a billionaire by throwing around free money, more recently billions in government subsidies but originally, as a kid, his massive inheritance from South African diamond mines. And he is all those things, but there is also something more going on here.

The Twitter takeover, in fact, possesses an opaque but important similarity with—of all things—the Chinese government’s COVID policy. If we assume that Musk’s many fumbles with one of the world’s largest social media platforms is nothing but a blunder, nothing but stupidity, then we miss out on an illuminating question. Which, it turns out, is the same question we miss when we assume the Chinese government’s zero tolerance COVID policy is a mere example of totalitarian inclinations or a different public health culture (both of which are explanations infused with racist stereotypes).

So what on Earth connects Elon Musk to China’s COVID policy? For one thing, one of Musk’s other companies, Tesla, became the first foreign company to wholly own a car factory in China when they opened an assembly plant in Shanghai in 2019. The Shanghai Gigafactory is one of Tesla’s largest, though it ran into problems when the government temporarily closed it down in 2020, and again in March 2022, to enforce a COVID quarantine. As the threat of new quarantines pops up, Musk might consider sending new investments to countries with weaker regulations like India. Apple, for example, is increasingly relying on India over China for iPhone production, meaning China’s COVID policy is costing them foreign direct investment.

There’s the similarity. A government policy causing a loss in revenue. A new corporate policy causing a plummet in stock value. Are we to judge both of these policies failures, or at the least, ineffective, because they lost money?

And that gets us to our central question: do companies and governments in this capitalist world system exist to make money? Is money, capital accumulation, the fundamental driving force of our world?

If it is, then both the turbulence Elon Musk has caused at Twitter and the stagnation the Chinese government has inflicted on its own economy due to its zero tolerance COVID policies have to be viewed as blunders, as they have unarguably caused a loss of economic value. However, in both cases, we might at least entertain the possibility that such an argument is reductionist if it hides other factors and outcomes that cannot be so easily quantified.

And quantification is an angle we need to explore to be able to answer this question. Even though the vagaries of international finance make it an obscure field, economic loss is easy to measure relative to qualitative forms of evaluation. Did Twitter lose value? Did the growth rate of the Chinese economy contract? Since both of these questions can be reduced to a number and real numbers are arranged along a single dimension, meaning we can always say whether one number is more or less than another number, then yes, Twitter lost value, and yes, the Chinese economy began to grow at a slower rate. So if it’s all about money, both of these policies were mistakes.

Before considering the case closed, should we be thinking about any kinds of qualitative as opposed to quantitative analysis that might illuminate the topic? After all, the knowledge systems of all the dominant institutions of our society are heavily biased in favor of quantitative and objective frameworks of thought; in fact this epistemology is central to the rationalism of the modern state and of capitalism itself, given that they allow for reproducibility and thus industrialism as both an economic and a political or war-making mode, and they allow ethical and spiritual frameworks to be subsumed into the construction of society itself, therefore making them invisible and immune to being questioned. If you want me to explain this idea more, let me know and I’ll devote some time to it in the future, but for now, let’s get back to Twitter.

What did Musk accomplish at Twitter, aside from losing unimaginably vast sums of money and showing the entire world that he’s not as intelligent as he thinks he is? He has taken a huge step to create a more right-wing media environment in what might become the biggest change to the landscape since the emergence of Fox News. True, Twitter’s algorithms always favored the specific content and also the controversy-seeking, baiting tactics of the Right. It is also true that conversation on Twitter was more often than not superficial and demeaning. However, we should not deny that anarchists and other anticapitalists saw Twitter as an important space for organizing and outreach. I had never been on social media my entire life, until finally around the end of 2019, when other anarchists convinced me that it did not make sense for me to spend so much time writing if I was going to avoid the platforms where writing and political analysis were actually being distributed in the current day.

And there are other corners of Twitter where emotional supportiveness, care, and mutual aid are actually the norm, spaces important in many people’s lives for building safety and opportunities for healing and connection, in rejection of the ableist, trans- and homophobic, racist culture that predominates in public space.

So yes, Twitter is a hellsite, but if we so quickly forget about some of the things that brought us there, we risk missing the relevance of this moment. Musk’s takeover of Twitter has enabled a fierce campaign of censorship against anarchist and other anticapitalist accounts, frequently executed by Musk himself, to such an extent that we should seriously consider that this was one of his primary motivations, more than making money. We already know that restoring Trump’s account was a motivator for him.

Meanwhile, the centrist media has given massive coverage to the Right’s “free speech” anti-censorship alibi. They continue to portray Musk as an anti-censorship figure, restoring far-Right accounts that had been banned, and they refuse to mention the accounts that Musk has been banning.

What about the Chinese government’s zero-tolerance COVID policy? Obviously, shutting everything down in a neighborhood, a city, or an entire region as soon as a rise in COVID cases is detected is going to be disruptive to the economy, as when when authorities closed down Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory and so many other thousands of factories. For a while now, Chinese planners and economists internationally have figures detailing how the zero-tolerance and other regulatory policies are slowing the economy and causing unemployment to skyrocket.

It’s important to mention that GDP growth is not just a metric imposed by Western observers. The Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping has made GDP growth targets a central part of their ruling strategy and their conceptualization of development. And yet, midway through the year, when it became clear they would not even meet their already reduced target of 5.5% growth, they chose to prioritize their restrictive no COVID policies.

Most countries in the world chose to allow a massive number of deaths in exchange for better economic growth. In the US, that’s over 1 million deaths, a figure we don’t see the media mention very often. However, the Chinese government cannot accurately be accused of humanitarianism, given that their solutions have included locking workers into their factories. In fact, their zero-tolerance COVID policy bears a striking similarity to Mao’s Four Pests Campaign, which sought to drive animals like flies and sparrows to extinction as a part of the government’s ambitious agricultural program. The purpose is less to save lives and more to eliminate external, natural forces capable of disrupting a rational, quantitative planning process.

A couple notes here, for accuracy. Mao is frequently lambasted for trying to eliminate sparrows, and the disastrous ecological consequences that policy had. At the same time (late ‘50s) and for significantly longer, the US government was trying to exterminate the wolves. Also, Western hacks and mainstream media frequently refer to socialist states as “planned economies” and NATO states as “free market economies.” Though there are significant differences in the strategies of state intervention in the economy, these labels are bogus since all modern states exist on the same continuum. The US government, from the beginning but even more so since FDR, engages in substantive economic planning, deciding which sectors will get the most capital, deciding interest rates, setting targets for inflation; and the Chinese government allows and encourages a massive private sector that is more responsive to market forces.

The reason all states engage in planning, and a more accurate framework for understanding the nature of that planning, is social control.

What is social control? The Marxist I like the most told me it is a fetishistic, meaningless category. Actually, it’s a necessary concept for explaining some glaring holes in Marxism itself and in any framework that sees capital accumulation as the be-all and end-all for understanding our society.

Musk’s actions make sense, even though they lost him $9 billion dollars, because like any capitalist he is worried about fundamental questions of social control that allow him to be a capitalist in the first place. The Chinese government’s actions make sense because developing techniques that allow a state to neutralize and surpass epidemics would greatly increase that state’s planning powers, and even if they fail they are testing and amplifying their arsenal of social control techniques, and social control is the fundamental concern of any state and thus the fundamental concern of capitalism, being an economic system entirely dependent on state power.

In this context it is worth noting that the Chinese government decided to relax their COVID policy not in early July, when they were forced to choose that policy over their economic growth targets, but at the end of November, when mass protests bordering on insurrection against the policy broke out. The policy got in the way of economic accumulation: they stuck to it. The policy got in the way of social control: they abandoned it.

Academically trained Marxists are going to be biased in favor of a quantitative analysis, like seeing capital accumulation as the fundamental force in our society, for the same reasons that all our dominant institutions are biased in favor of quantitative analysis. A qualitative analysis is not reproducible, and the modern state needs access to reproducible sciences.

This seems like a contradiction to claim that the state is fundamentally motivated by a qualitative science, like social control, and yet constantly in need of a quantitative science like capital accumulation. In fact, this contradiction traces a tense balance, a relation, that has come to shape the entire planet in these last centuries. The fundamental truth of the State is social control, an existential war waged by centralized power against all life. And the most effective motor the State has ever developed to fuel its war is not a winning religion, it’s not a more streamlined process for the transfer of power, it’s economic accumulation. Before capitalism, states were exponentially weaker, frequently overthrown by the societies they tried to dominate, even when state and society shared the hierarchical culture produced by patriarchy and organized religion.

Capitalism, which requires the enclosure of the commons and the alienation of all life, cannot exist without the planning and war-making powers of the State. And once capitalism emerged, created in a continuum by the Italian city-states, the Castillian-Aragonese state, and finally in its modern form by the Dutch state, it bestowed the states that adopted it with such power that henceforth it became the duty of every government on the planet to embrace capitalism, lest they be overwhelmed by those that already had. This sheds light on one of the reasons that colonialism spread in such a rapid wave, especially where there were already states that could be instrumentalized in the conquered territories. And it helps explain why socialism, by not rejecting the state, was fully absorbed by capitalism in the early 20th century, and why all Marxist-inspired states are fully capitalist, fully colonial, and every bit as imperialist as their geopolitical circumstances allow them to be.

Capital accumulation is a necessary motor for the state; it is also a favored metric for a quantitative science of power. Given that accumulation is a result of oppressive, exploitative processes and it cannot happen without the domination of society and nature, high rates of accumulation are generally a good indicator that state power is firmly ensconced, that the State is winning its war against life. Still, the fundamental question is that of social control. Many capitalists, as specialists, will lose sight of this as they become obsessed with their numbers game, but in the end it’s just a game, a highly useful game, and when push comes to shove, questions of social war will always be more important for the institutions of power. The trick for them is to make sure that seeking capital accumulation and seeking social control always go hand in hand, rather than entering into contradiction.

As for anticapitalist movements, we lose sight of the social war at our own risk. The reasons for this are multiple. Marxism’s predictive power regarding the development of the revolution is nil, displaying a profound lack of understanding of what revolution actually means. Attempts to combine materialist with geopolitical analysis, as with Giovanni Arrighi’s development of world systems theory (on the whole an illuminating theoretical framework) also demonstrate their inaccuracy and disconnection from living history wherever they focus too heavily on quantitative questions of capital accumulation, a weakness explored in Alex Gorrion’s “Anarchy in World Systems.” These are not just obscure questions relating to debates from past centuries, given how academic, materialist-oriented journals and discussion groups continue to falsify the history of revolutionary struggle as we live it, claiming, for example, that the major uprisings of the past two decades have occurred as a result of the crisis of accumulation, when in fact the uprisings preceded the manifestation of that crisis and have occurred in countries experiencing polar opposite moments in the kinds of crises capitalism constantly produces.

(I shouldn’t have to provide this rebuttal, but alas, experience tells me I do: it is intellectually dishonest and a waste of everyone’s time to start off by claiming that rebellion is “produced” by a specific quantitative crisis in accumulation, to then be shown that in fact rebellions are occurring in completely different economic circumstances—the crises associated with growth, the crises associated with recession, the crises associated with inflation—and then to double back around and claim that one’s original argument was that crisis produces rebellion. Given that capitalism is a constant string of crises, this is a meaningless statement with nothing predictive or scientific about it, and it sets up the dishonest strawman that non-materialists believe that rebellions come out of thin air, in no way a response to their surroundings.)

Time and again, the first sign of crisis that materialists notice is the rebellion itself, meaning they are rarely on the front lines. Those who are more present tend to be those who decide to fight back even if objective conditions are supposedly unfavorable.

For our survival, we need to understand the ways the State is designing a constant war against us, and always has been, and always will be. For our liberation, we need to understand unquantifiable life, abundance without capital, and we need to develop an intelligence for a kind of struggle that also subverts the logic of warfare. A collective sight that can perceive the battlefield but destroy the opposing army by moving sideways, by burrowing, by climbing into the trees, by turning the battlefield back into a field, a forest, a community.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

India and Brazil review existing collaboration in energy sector, cooperation in sustainable fuels, particularly biofuels

India and Brazil have reaffirmed their desire to strengthen cooperation between them to usher in various advantages, which include economic growth, by creating jobs in the rural sector and fostering innovation in renewable energy technologies and energy security, by reducing reliance on imports.

Importantly, bilateral cooperation in Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) production will contribute to global efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of aviation, a joint statement issued after a meeting between the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas of India, Hardeep S Puri, and Minister of Mines and Energy of Brazil, Alexandre Silveira, on Cooperation between India and Brazil in the Energy Sector.

Puri paid an official visit to the Federative Republic of Brazil from September 19 – 21 at the invitation of the Minister of Mines and Energy of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Alexandre Silveira. He was accompanied by Indian Oil and Gas Companies representing both the upstream and downstream sectors.

During the visit, the two sides reviewed the existing collaboration in the energy sector including Indian upstream investment, mutually beneficial relationships in bilateral trade, and cooperation in sustainable fuels, particularly biofuels.

Continue reading.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Story ask game for Lawrence of Arabia, if you please, with a 4, 14, and 21 (for that, assume the "author" is David Lean).

Lawrence! Lawrence! Lawrence!

4: assign the story a hyper-specific genre name

Epic historical wartime adventure biopic tragedy. With camels.

14: how likely do you think the story is to break the reader's heart?

I think it's very much a matter of personal buy-in. If you're the sort of person willing to invest emotionally in four-hour epics from the 60s, then it 100% will break your heart. This movie is devastating. I can quote chapter and verse of all the lines and scenes and moments that wreck me, if you want, but really what it comes down to is Lawrence in the empty Arab Council saying "And that would have been something." Ahhhhhhh. It's a story about reaching and failing to grasp, and those are always the most effective tragedies imo.

21: based on this story, would you be interested enough in the author to read their other work?

I would love to watch every David Lean movie over the course of my life. I've already made a pretty big dent in it! Doctor Zhivago is my next favorite after Lawrence, being a better literary adaptation than 99.9% of amazing novels get. Zhivago is such a literary favorite of mine, and it should be high praise that I love Lean's movie almost as much as I love Pasternak's bittersweet beautiful heartbreak of a novel. Ask me about the book sometime, if you're interested.

I also recently watched Brief Encounter for the first time, which I just loved to pieces. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. The best tragedy of timing that I've experienced in a long time. Will definitely be revisiting in the future.

I will admit, I giggled my way through Bridge Over the River Kwai. It was an excellent movie, but I think the whole "we are BRITISH we are going to build THE GREATEST BRIDGE EVER" thing, which is supposed to be a sign of a semi-broken mind, was just too funny for me to move past in favor of the serious tragedy. Having already seen Tom Hank's The Volunteers, which parodies Bridge Over the River Kwai, didn't really help either.

I will probably give A Passage to India a try next. That's also an adaptation of a novel I thoroughly enjoyed, albeit not in the way I love Zhivago. I'm sure I'll get to his Dickens stuff eventually too, although those will be a harder sell for me. It's a shame he never directed A Tale of Two Cities. I know he's got a bunch of other, lesser known movies too, and I will definitely get to those eventually as well.

So, in short, a resounding yes to the question. I'm not, like, a film person in the way that many people are, but I think I can say with some confidence that Lean is my favorite auteur-director.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[VoA is US State Media]

The White House said Thursday that it would accept the results of Indonesia’s presidential election in which Prabowo Subianto, a former army general who for more than a decade was banned from entering the United States because of allegations linked to human rights abuses, has claimed victory.[...]

In 2020, the Trump administration dropped the de facto ban on Prabowo’s entry into the United States that was imposed over accusations of human rights abuses, including the abduction and torture of pro-democracy activists during the 1998 ouster of his then- father-in-law, President Suharto, and involvement with military crimes in East Timor.

Prabowo denies the allegations and has never been formally charged.

Pressed by VOA on whether the Biden administration was comfortable with Prabowo’s track record, Kirby underscored that human rights have been “the very foundation” of Biden's foreign policy.[...]

Jokowi defeated Prabowo in previous elections, but this year signaled support for his former rival through his eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 36, who ran with Prabowo as vice president.

Gibran was able to join Prabowo’s ticket only after the country’s constitutional court created an exception to a rule that candidates must be at least 40 years old. That fueled criticism that Jokowi was trying to create a political dynasty in the world’s third-largest democracy.

Those concerns will largely be overlooked by Washington, considering Indonesia’s pivotal role in the U.S. geopolitical contest for influence with China and international efforts to mitigate climate change. Indonesia is the biggest exporter of coal and claims the world’s biggest reserves of nickel, a key component of electric car batteries.

“If the results show a Prabowo victory next month, then I would expect the U.S. to treat Minister Prabowo the same way that it treated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he was elected in 2014, waiving any remaining restrictions on engagement with him,” Aaron Connelly, research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told VOA.[...]

Just as with India, which Washington sees as a counterweight to China, the United States is keen to foster closer ties with Indonesia, home to the largest Muslim population in the world and an important voice of the Global South.

For months, Jakarta and Washington have been discussing a potential minerals partnership aimed at facilitating nickel trade. Indonesia's nickel mining and refining industry has been largely dependent on investment from Chinese companies and besieged by environmental concerns

15 Feb 24

[somerabbitholes]

hi. i've been on the hunt or a good laptop. the one i'm using right now on it's last legs. i've been thinking of getting a macbook but the price - wowza. i just want to know if it's a good investment.

what macbook do you have? is it worth the investment? does it last? have you always been a macbook user or did you switch from windows? i'm also hesitant about making a switch from windows to macos.

would appreciate your view...

helloo. my logic while getting it was that i wanted something small, like 13 or 14 inches, and for anything that size, i would've had to pay more, or settle for less processing speeds/disk space etc. and so by that logic, this macbook (it's an m1 air) made sense. also, an important point worth mentioning here is that i bought mine in the US so i did pay less than i would have in india.

on the functionality, it took me some time to get used to this system after switching, but i've taken to it quite well. it is working great so far, but also it's only a year old. i love this laptop, i don't have the hesitation of switching systems, also in the future if i go back to a windows, but i would always be hesitant about how much i pay versus what all i need it to do.

i hope this helps.

[metamatar]

two positions on effective nuclear power advocacy

1. everytime there's an attempt to build a nuclear plant in india there are mass local protests which get locked into cycles of state repression due to fear of meltdowns. that's actually also the case with building dams (narmada bachao), large mining projects (vedanta) and expansion of coal plants (thermal power plants in assam/tamil nadu.) dam opposition is actually the most powerful environmental force in the country.

people are right to believe that they will be uprooted from their lives and that they will not be adequately protected in the case of failures which is borne out by the the bhopal gas tragedy or sterlite gas leaks. nobody wants to live near these plants. so inevitably it is the world's most marginalised people who end up living near them. look at the data on land conflict watch regarding industrial land use and acquisition for power.

outside the comfortably stupid german green party caricature there are actually people with serious concerns about nuclear power. long term investments and public trust can only occur when energy prices decrease and plants operate reasonably safely. prices of nuclear hover around ₹4 per unit while solar is ₹2 per unit in india. and it is a lie to pretend global nuclear retrenchment happened due to a conspiracy by oil/gas instead of the extremely expensive price of failure at fukushima (200 billion usd or so.) westinghouse went broke. pretending nuclear waste is the concern and not meltdowns is missing the forest for the trees.

2. i think we need to recognise the way the Non Proliferation Treaties choke civilian nuclear power while not making any commitment to long term disarmament in nuclear states rather than berating people with misgivings about meltdowns. rn, nuclear security for me and not for thee is its basic principle. the Nuclear Suppliers Group has not approved membership for india because it remains a useful tool of superpower gamesmanship.

lack of nuclear fuel means most existing nuclear power plants in india run at 60% capacity because we don't have that much uranium and have to import it and widely available thorium requires breeding which is technologically and economically infeasible. technology sharing is obviously very difficult when you're not in the NSG.

the US betrayal of iran after their deal was struck is the other obvious roadblock to building nuclear capacity in the third world. restricting nuclear tech is another way that imperial noose seeks to maintain control of states trying to unseat themselves from domination. it is not actually a surprise that north korea continues to pursue a weapons programme because deterrence works. and ukraine, of the three countries that disarmed because of the NPT is currently being invaded. you either subsume to China/Russia/US for defence or you just don't get to have nuclear energy which is not the position of a world that wants nuclear energy.

[colonelrajyavardhanrathore]

Eye on Making Investments a Reality: Rajasthan Government’s Strategic Move to Attract Investors

Rajasthan: A Growing Economic Powerhouse

Rajasthan, India’s largest state by area, is home to a diverse economic landscape that ranges from agriculture and mining to tourism and industrial growth. Historically, the state has seen substantial contributions from sectors such as mineral resources, textiles, and craftsmanship. However, with the changing times, the state government has recognized the need to diversify and expand the economy by inviting more modern, high-impact industries, especially in technology, manufacturing, and renewable energy.

Government Initiatives to Attract Investments

The Rajasthan government has been taking a series of proactive measures to make the state a hub for both domestic and foreign investments. These initiatives include:

Investor-Friendly Policies: The government has launched a variety of tax incentives, subsidies, and reduced bureaucratic hurdles to create a more streamlined investment environment. This helps both new startups and established multinational companies to enter the market with ease.

Infrastructure Development: The state has significantly boosted its infrastructure, building robust transportation networks, logistics hubs, and industrial zones in key regions such as Jaipur, Udaipur, and Jodhpur. This development ensures that businesses have access to world-class facilities that facilitate smooth operations.

Dedicated Investment Promotion Units: The Rajasthan government has set up specialized bodies, such as the Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO), to act as a one-stop solution for investors. These units help streamline processes related to land acquisition, approvals, and permits.

Focus on Renewable Energy: Rajasthan’s commitment to sustainable energy is also notable. With vast open spaces and favorable climatic conditions, the state has become a leader in solar power generation in India. This attracts investors focused on clean energy solutions.

Col Rajyavarshan Rahtore: A Visionary Leader in the Investment Drive

One of the key figures behind Rajasthan’s investment drive is Col Rajyavarshan Rahtore, whose leadership and strategic insights have helped shape the state’s future. With a background in the Indian Army, Col Rahtore brings a unique perspective to governance and economic development, combining disciplined military strategies with innovative policy-making.

A Strong Advocate for Investor Relations

Col Rahtore is known for his strong advocacy��of cultivating good relations with both domestic and international investors. He believes that fostering long-term partnerships with the private sector is crucial to ensuring the state’s economic prosperity. Under his leadership, the government has worked to build trust and create a stable investment climate that encourages both large-scale and small-scale investors.

Collaborative Approach to Investment Promotion

Col Rajyavarshan Rahtore understands that attracting investments goes beyond policy implementation. He has emphasized the need for collaboration between local entrepreneurs, large corporates, and foreign investors. By establishing public-private partnerships, he has played a pivotal role in creating a more inclusive environment for various industries, such as technology, healthcare, education, and manufacturing.

Focus on Sector-Specific Growth

While Col Rahtore’s initiatives have been broad-reaching, he has also directed special attention to specific sectors with the highest potential for growth. These include:

Tourism and Hospitality: Rajasthan has long been a popular tourist destination, known for its palaces, forts, and cultural heritage. Under Col Rahtore’s leadership, the state has focused on developing world-class infrastructure for tourism and hospitality. This includes the construction of modern hotels, resorts, and convention centers that cater to international visitors.

Renewable Energy: With a sharp focus on sustainability, Col Rahtore has played a central role in Rajasthan becoming a leading state in India for solar power generation. The government’s efforts to build large solar parks, such as the Bhadla Solar Park, have attracted significant investment from global renewable energy firms.

Industrial Growth: The government’s push to develop industrial corridors in Rajasthan has opened doors for a range of industries. Special emphasis has been given to attracting automobile manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and defense industries to set up shop in the state.

Rajasthan’s Investment Ecosystem: Key Strengths and Opportunities

As the Rajasthan government accelerates its investment initiatives, several aspects of the state’s economic ecosystem make it an attractive proposition for investors. These factors are contributing to the state’s growing reputation as an investment hub.

Strategic Location and Connectivity

Rajasthan’s geographical location in India is one of its key advantages. The state is well-connected to other major Indian markets, as well as global trade routes. With excellent rail, road, and air connectivity, businesses can easily transport goods both within India and abroad. The government has also made substantial investments in improving infrastructure at ports, airports, and highways.

Skilled Workforce and Educational Institutions

Rajasthan is home to several leading educational institutions that produce a highly skilled workforce. These include prestigious engineering colleges, business schools, and medical universities. The state is positioning itself as a key player in producing the next generation of workers in industries like IT, biotechnology, and manufacturing.

Large Consumer Market

With a population of over 80 million people, Rajasthan offers access to a vast and growing consumer market. As incomes rise, there is increasing demand for goods and services in sectors such as consumer electronics, food processing, and healthcare. This provides significant growth potential for companies looking to expand their reach in India.

Conclusion: Rajasthan — A State to Watch for Future Investments

Rajasthan’s strategic initiatives and the leadership of Col Rajyavarshan Rahtore have set the stage for a future where the state becomes one of India’s top destinations for investment. With its investor-friendly policies, focus on infrastructure development, and an eye on key sectors such as renewable energy, tourism, and manufacturing, Rajasthan is well on its way to becoming a beacon of economic growth.

The efforts being made to streamline processes and build strong relationships with investors are already bearing fruit. With more and more companies looking to invest in the state, Rajasthan is poised to realize its potential as a significant economic powerhouse in India’s growth story. As Col Rajyavarshan Rahtore continues to guide the state forward, there is no doubt that Rajasthan will remain a key player in shaping the country’s economic future.

[androgynoustran]

Love Through Letters

Luca:

It was a bright, unseasonably warm afternoon in Germany when I first discovered the pen-pal app, “Slowly.” The name intrigued me. In a world obsessed with speed, the idea of taking things slow appealed to me. As a computer science student, my life was a whirlwind of coding and deadlines. I wanted something different—something genuine. So, I signed up, hoping to connect with someone from a distant corner of the globe, someone whose life was completely different from mine.

A few days passed. I received messages from people, but none seemed to capture my interest until I opened a letter from someone named Pri. Her name rolled off my tongue like honey, sweet and inviting. With a flicker of excitement, I read her reply. She spoke of languages with a passion that mirrored my own. I felt like I’d found a kindred spirit.

“Hey, Luca!” she had written cheerily.

Her words danced in my head as I read how she, too, found beauty in the cadence of languages. She spoke four languages and was learning more, a feat that made her seem so worldly, so vibrant. I quickly drafted a response, my fingers flying over the keyboard. I wanted to tell her about my fascination with programming languages, how they were like a secret code to all the wonders of technology. But most of all, I wanted her to see me—really see me—a young man with dreams, fears, and a longing for connection.

Across our letters, I began to slip little pieces of myself into the conversation. I told her about my favorite books, the late-night coding marathons, and the quiet moments when I stared at the stars, pondering the vastness of the universe. With every letter, I felt like I was unveiling another layer of my soul, and Pri was reciprocating.

Pri:

The first time I saw his name flash on my screen, I felt an exhilarating mixture of curiosity and eagerness. I had never considered a pen-pal before, but Luca seemed different. His warm demeanor seeped through his words, as if I could hear him jovially chuckling at his own musings on linguistics. The very notion that we lived in such different worlds, yet found a beautiful intersection in our love for languages, fascinated me.

In my reply, I elaborated on how much languages spoke to me—their sounds, the beautiful scripts, and the cultural heritage embedded within them. As I typed away, I imagined Luca reading my words thousands of miles away in Germany. He felt like a safety net, someone who didn’t judge me by the color of my skin or the complexity of my background, but appreciated me for who I was at that moment.

We exchanged messages that morphed into a rhythmic dance of correspondence. From sharing our favorite foods to discussing our ambitions, I loved the wide gulf that separated us—almost like a barrier that nonetheless allowed us to connect more authentically. In between studying for my business administration degree, I relished every moment spent crafting my letters to Luca, often squinting at the screen deep into the night, my hair a frizzy mess and documents piled high.

Luca:

As the weeks turned into months, I grew more invested in Pri's tales from India. She spoke of the bustling streets of Delhi, of aromatic spices that tickled her senses, and festivals filled with color and laughter. To hear her convey her cultural pride was intoxicating. I wanted to learn more—about her life, her family, and her dreams.

In turn, I shared snippets of my own world. I described the quiet beauty of the Black Forest and the vibrant yet subdued atmosphere of my university life. I sent her pictures, meticulously chosen to encapsulate moments of joy, and urged her to do the same. Each image added another layer to the reality of our correspondence. The screens were no longer just portals; they felt like windows into each other's lives.

One day, I took a bold step; I invited her to video chat. The thought sent butterflies racing in my stomach. What if the easy flow of messages didn’t translate? What if our connection faded in person? The anxiety twisted in my gut, but I hit send, and waited, heart pounding.

Pri:

Luca's video chat invitation left me electrified and anxious at once. I had never done anything like this before. My fingers trembled as I looked at the clock, counting down the minutes until our call. What if I said the wrong thing? What if the connection dropped? I furiously rearranged my room, trying to create a backdrop that would show the best side of me. I had gotten so used to our letters that the idea of hearing his voice felt daunting but equally exciting.

When Luca’s face finally appeared on my screen, all my fears dissipated. His wide smile was genuine, and his blue eyes sparkled with warmth. Hearing him speak was like music; it was comforting yet exhilarating. We talked for hours, forgetting the time entirely, mesmerized by the nuances of each other’s lives.

Every laugh, every shared secret deepened the bond we were building. I saw him lean back, his eyebrows knitting together as he focused on my words, and it made my heart skip. By the end of our call, I realized I was falling for the man behind the letters—the multifaceted person who held the entire world in his gaze.

Luca:

As our correspondence unfolded, it became clear that our bond was morphing into something profound. I mean, who would have thought that a simple app could lead to this? With every letter and every video chat, my feelings for Pri grew stronger, wrapping around my heart like ivy climbing a trellis. I found myself daydreaming about visiting her, walking side by side through the crowded streets of Delhi, tasting spices together, and experiencing Holi’s riotous colors.

Ironically, our cultural differences seemed to fuse us more than separate us. I realized that her perspectives offered me new insights, and I longed to explore the tapestry of her life just as she was stepping into mine.

Perhaps one day, we would no longer be bound by screens. Perhaps one day, I could hold her hand beneath the same starry sky I had so often shared in writing—turning the dreams of our slow beginnings into a vibrant reality.

In the end, “Slowly” had transformed our lives, leaving two hearts intertwined across oceans—a love story bound not by geography, but by an unwavering connection formed through letters and whispers.

[foxnangelseo]

India's FDI Policies Demystified: What You Need to Know Before Investing

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has played a pivotal role in shaping India's economic landscape, driving growth, innovation, and global integration. With its vast market potential, skilled workforce, and supportive government policies, India has emerged as a preferred destination for international investors seeking expansion opportunities. In this blog, we will demystify India's FDI policies, explore the significance of FDI to India's economy, and provide insights for foreign investors looking to capitalize on India's growth story.

Understanding FDI:

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) refers to the investment made by foreign entities, such as multinational corporations or private individuals, in domestic companies and assets of a nation. Unlike other forms of investment, FDI involves a significant level of ownership or control over the invested firm, facilitating long-term strategic partnerships and collaboration.

Significance of FDI to India's Economic Development:

FDI in India plays a crucial role in driving economic growth and development across various dimensions:

1. Economic Growth: FDI injects capital into diverse industries, stimulating production, creating job opportunities, and contributing to GDP growth.

2. Technological Advancement: Foreign investors bring innovative ideas, best practices, and advanced technologies, fostering technological modernization across industries.

3. Export Promotion: Foreign companies often produce goods for export, enhancing India's export competitiveness and improving its balance of payments.

4. Infrastructure Development: FDI inflows frequently target infrastructure projects, enhancing India's transportation, telecommunications, and energy infrastructure.

5. Global Integration: FDI promotes trade and investment ties, facilitating India's integration into the global economy and enhancing its competitiveness on the international stage.

India's Appeal to FDI:

Several factors contribute to India's attractiveness as a destination for FDI:

1. Huge Market: With over 1.3 billion consumers and a growing middle class, India offers a vast market potential for foreign investors seeking growth opportunities.

2. Skilled Labor Force: India boasts a highly educated and skilled workforce, particularly in sectors such as IT, engineering, and medicine, providing a talent pool for innovation and productivity.

3. Government Initiatives: Programs like "Make in India" and "Digital India" streamline business operations and offer incentives to foreign investors, signaling the government's commitment to facilitating investment.

4. Infrastructure Growth: India is undergoing rapid industrialization and infrastructure development, offering opportunities for investment in sectors such as transportation, energy, and telecommunications.

5. Abundant Resources: India's rich natural resources present opportunities for investment in sectors like mining, agriculture, and renewable energy, catering to the growing demand for sustainable solutions.

6. Investor Protection: Bilateral investment agreements ensure the protection of foreign investors' rights, providing a secure investment environment and fostering trust and confidence among investors.

Current Scenario and Future Outlook:

India remains a popular destination for international investors, with FDI inflows expected to continue strengthening in the coming years. As India undergoes further economic reforms and policy changes, the importance of FDI in driving growth and development is likely to increase, positioning India as a top investment destination for foreign investors seeking opportunities in a vibrant and dynamic economy.

Key Considerations for Foreign Investors:

Before investing in India, foreign investors should consider the following factors:

1. Market Analysis: Conduct a thorough analysis of India's market potential, consumer demographics, and competitive landscape to identify investment opportunities aligned with your business objectives.

2. Regulatory Environment: Familiarize yourself with India's FDI policies, regulations, and legal framework governing foreign investment to ensure compliance and mitigate risks.

3. Sectoral Opportunities: Explore specific sectors such as technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and renewable energy that offer growth prospects and align with your expertise and investment strategy.

4. Partnerships and Collaborations: Seek strategic partnerships and collaborations with local stakeholders, industry associations, and government agencies to navigate the market landscape and leverage local expertise.

5. Risk Management: Assess and mitigate risks associated with currency fluctuations, political instability, regulatory changes, and market volatility to safeguard your investment portfolio and ensure long-term sustainability.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has emerged as a cornerstone of India's economic growth story, catalyzing development, innovation, and global integration. As we delve deeper into India's FDI policies and their implications for foreign investors, it becomes evident that the nation offers a compelling blend of opportunities, challenges, and potential rewards.

India's journey towards becoming a preferred destination for FDI has been marked by concerted efforts from policymakers, industry stakeholders, and investors alike. Through progressive policy reforms, initiatives such as "Make in India" and "Digital India," and a commitment to fostering a conducive business environment, India has positioned itself as an attractive investment destination on the global stage.

The significance of FDI to India's economic development cannot be overstated. FDI inflows have played a pivotal role in driving economic growth, stimulating production, creating job opportunities, and fostering technological advancement. Moreover, foreign investors have contributed to India's export promotion efforts, infrastructure development, and global integration, thereby bolstering the nation's competitiveness and resilience in the international arena.

India's appeal to foreign investors lies in its diverse market potential, abundant resources, skilled labor force, and supportive regulatory framework. With over 1.3 billion consumers and a burgeoning middle class, India offers a vast and dynamic market for businesses seeking growth opportunities. Additionally, India's highly educated workforce, particularly in sectors such as IT, engineering, and medicine, provides a talent pool for innovation and entrepreneurship.

The government's proactive stance towards attracting FDI, coupled with initiatives to streamline business operations and offer incentives to foreign investors, has bolstered investor confidence and fostered a conducive investment climate. Furthermore, bilateral investment agreements ensure the protection of foreign investors' rights, providing a secure and predictable investment environment that encourages long-term capital inflows.

Looking ahead, India's trajectory as a top investment destination for foreign investors appears promising. As the nation continues to embark on its path of economic reform and modernization, the role of FDI in driving growth and development is expected to become even more pronounced. With ongoing efforts to enhance ease of doing business, promote innovation and entrepreneurship, and strengthen infrastructure and connectivity, India is poised to unlock new avenues for investment and collaboration across diverse sectors.

For foreign investors looking to capitalize on India's growth story, it is imperative to conduct thorough market analysis, familiarize themselves with India's regulatory environment, and identify sectoral opportunities aligned with their business objectives and expertise. Strategic partnerships, collaborations with local stakeholders, and robust risk management strategies are essential elements for navigating the complexities of investing in India and maximizing returns on investment.

In conclusion, India's FDI policies offer a gateway to a world of opportunities for foreign investors seeking to participate in the nation's dynamic and evolving economy. By understanding the nuances of India's regulatory framework, leveraging its market potential, and forging strategic partnerships, foreign investors can position themselves to reap the benefits of India's growth trajectory while contributing to the nation's journey towards prosperity and inclusive development. As India continues to chart its course as a global economic powerhouse, the role of FDI will remain pivotal in shaping its future trajectory and fostering sustainable growth and prosperity for all stakeholders involved.

References

This post was originally published on: Foxnangel

[nilnether]

Company Property

I've bee listening to this again thinking how perfectly it describes RDA and how it most likely works. And how it treats the people who we saw dying en masse working for it. Even of they only hire the worst I doubt they signed up to be slaughtered to finance RDA expansion.

The song is about a different hypercapitalist entiry abusing people but I suppose one evil space conglomerate is just like another. After all they are all in the race to the bottom line with the likes of the East India Company.

This is exactly how the RDA is getting people to come to Pandora and die defending corporate assets and revenue streams

Welcome to space. What were you expecting? It’s a dangerous place. Thank you for investing.

Monsters that can eat you in one bite and locals with arrows as long as you. I hope you enjoy being cannon fodder.

Just ten short years to a new frontier Snooze as you cruise and you’ll wake up here! You’ve been trapped in that ship for an awful long time So perhaps you have simply forgot what you signed

Wake up from cryo to be reminded that this isn't a job you can quit. Just think of the numbers of RDA soldier we saw dying in the A2 movie. Wonder if they knew what was waiting for them when they sign up.

Honestly? Did you not read the colony policy? That defines you as company property? That waivers your say in autonomy? The conglomerate’s got you in lock and key

You belong to the company now. I suppose this is especially true for Recoms. They never owned themselves. They wouldn't be able to afford to.

We put the dollar back into idolatry If you’re upset you can rent an apology We are a family forged in bureaucracy No I in ‘team’ but there’s con in ‘economy’

Con in economy. Dollar in idolatry.

Were you expecting adventure? Were you hoping for fun? My friend you’re indentured And pleasure’s exempt from your tenure

...

If you’d rather drop dead that’s fine But you know that dropping down dead bears a fine So you do your job, I’ll do mine I gotta meet a six foot deep bottom line 

And not even death frees you from your debt. RDA even offers you the opportunity to work for it after death. If you're useful.

...

The secrets of the universe and all the worlds to be explored But our dreams are back on earth and now the work is our reward

Maybe you bought into the ideals of exploring other words and saving Earth?

And you’ll be grateful for seats at the table Though it dips at one end and the bench is unstable You may waste your days but at least you were able To pay off your grave since we leased you your cradle

But the company will never play fair. Please die at the end of your depreciation period. Thank you.

Be faithful and pray we’ll repay what you invest Behave as you slave for humanity’s interest On account that you’re all on account   and we’re quickly amounting humanity’s interest

So they can get fair return on their investment. It's for humanity's interest (paid out to shareholders only)

[fatehbaz]

Traditional scholarship in the history of science associates the quantifiable, universal human body with the European Enlightenment or ‘new science’. This measurable, universal body, it is argued, came to define modern medicine. Behind it lay the driving forces of political economy, [...] life insurance, and modern industrial [profit] [...]. But this widely accepted history of the universalisation and systemisation of human corporeality [...] [involves] an earlier global history of enslaving and measuring bodies in the Indies, born of the Iberian slave trade between Africa and colonial Iberian America. It was in the violent and profitable world of this slave trade that universal concepts and calculations of health risks, disease and bodily characteristics [...] emerged. Indeed, the scale of data production about bodies in the early modern world of Iberian slave trading far outpaced all contemporary systems of production of knowledge about the human body.

The key concept in this early modern quantification of the body was the pieza de Indias (Spanish) or peça da India (Portuguese). [...]

The appearance of this new measure and epistemology was intimately linked to the unprecedented rise in the size and complexity of the transatlantic commerce in human bodies during the first decades of the 17th century. The new, universal measure of man was the result of the slave trade’s need to quantify the risks of investing in human corporeality and its modern afflictions. By the late 16th century, Iberian slave traders, governments, corporations and financiers from around Europe (particularly from Genoa, Florence and the Netherlands) were already thinking of the transportation of slave bodies as units of risk.

---

The original licences for slaves transacted in Iberia were contractual concepts that did not refer to bodily characteristics [...] [and] were of limited help [...] for calculating the productivity [of a slave's body] [...]. Consequently, slave traders and slave-trading organisations, including the House of Trade (Casa de Contratación) in Seville, developed methodologies that allowed them to translate slave bodies into numbers and calculate the inherent value [...] as it related to an increasingly normalised, constant unit called the pieza. The concept of the pieza (the piece) allowed for the creation of contracts where investors, providers and the state could prospectively calculate tariff, gains and risk using quantifiable notions of bodies [...].

The historical record makes clear that the concept of ‘the piece of the Indies’ itself was already firmly established across the Atlantic basin by the early 1600s. [...] In addition to peça, Portuguese slave traders [in West Africa] used several other terms to refer to slaves who were not adult [...], reflecting an increasingly rich taxonomy [...]. Muleque or muleca [...]. Slave traders began using these terms to refer to young bodies that they discounted at rates [...]. Calculating the value of cañengues, muleques and mulecas by converting them into standard adult [...] piezas was a common practice [...]. Portuguese officials in Sao Paulo da Assumpcao de Loanda deployed the concept when they tallied ‘the dispatch’, or fees due to the Portuguese crown, for the embarkment of African slaves bound for the Americas. Such methods to appraise slave bodies became normative in Spanish America for determining the tariffs that traders had to pay to introduce slaves in the New World.

By the late 1530s, crown officials were counting the ‘pieces of slaves’ (piezas de esclavos) disembarking in Santo Domingo and selling them to miners [...] [and] hacienda owners [...] to work in the mines and estates of the island. [...] [A] concept of an ideal body for transportation and labour [...] had emerged across the Atlantic, and during the first decades of the 17th century it was disseminated across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, being widely used in Dutch trading records. [...] [S]lave traders and government officials used the term pieza to talk about other captive bodies from the Indies, most notably native or 'Indian' bodies in the Caribbean.

---

The concept of the piece of the Indies appears in full form in the 1660s as part of negotiations of the terms of the asiento de negros or slave monopoly between the Spanish crown and the Genoese financiers Domingo Grillo and Ambrosio Lomelín. The contract with the Grillos established that they would ‘bring 24,500 blacks, piezas de Indias, over the course of seven years and starting in 1662’. The monopoly established as one of its conditions that ‘the said quantity of blacks should be piezas de Indias, each one seven cuartas of height and up’. [...] Slave traders used height as a proxy for life histories of health and nutrition and as a predictor of the slave’s potential productivity [...] [and] created a complex system around the marker of height [...].

[H]aving grey hair, for instance, translated into a reduction in value of one cuarta or one-seventh of the standard pieza. The conditions of 'cloud in one eye [cataracts]' signified a reduction of two cuartas; scurvy, two cuartas; phlegm, one and one-half cuartas; a 'benign hernia', one cuarta [...]. Being older than 35 years merited a one-cuarta deduction [...]. The presence of lobanillos (small tumours) was worth one and one-half cuartas’ reduction; small fingers, one-half cuarta; incapacitating scars (burns), one and one-half cuarta; [...] localised ulcers, one-sixth of a cuarta; generalised ulcers, one cuarta; [...] short-sightednesss, two cuartas; [...] missing molars, one cuarta [...].

---

The contractual articulation of the concept of the piece of the Indies [...] formalised slave-based knowledge production about human bodies. The contract assembled a vast storehouse of knowledge, much of it held in the House of Trade in Seville, obtained from thousands of records of bodily characteristics and diseases for hundreds of thousands of bodies [...]. The Grillos’ contract set a precedent for the 1679 contract between Spanish and Portuguese merchants and the Dutch West India Company. The 1696 asiento between Spanish crown and [financier F.M.] and [financier N/P.], for example, agreed they would transport 10,000 tonnes of freight including 30,000 piezas de Indias of the ‘regular measure of seven cuartas’. Similarly, a 1709 contract between the French Compagnie de Guinée and Dutch slave traders, settled in Amsterdam, specified that the French would pay 110 pièces de huit (pieces of eight) ‘for each black piece of Indies’ delivered in the Caribbean.

As the ‘new science’ of the European Enlightenment dawned in Europe, the piece of the Indies was well established as the most disseminated universal measure of the human body.

---

All text above by: Pablo F. Gomez. "Pieza de Indias: Slave Trade and the Quantification of Human Bodies". A chapter in New World Objects of Knowledge: A Cabinet of Curiosities (edited by Mark Thurner and Juan Pimentel), pp. 47-50. Published 2021. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[sm0k3ybac0n]

important

girl help i think i stumble into a fucking pedo heres a transition of the dms that i sent myself for resits on discord  :

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completely utterly isn't the question of that you are smart and intelligent and I continue to expect you to be smart and intelligent at all times no excuses if sounds blood supper for us I think we do not you are adulterer you can neglect one you are 1 you'll eat 1 you usually bring sauce I'll give you when you start it all over again and keep on starting all over get into the right utterly simple as that[9:20 PM]It didn't ask for a peanut gallery or a bathtub cafe to be standing somewhere around a humming in the background lest yet bullshit 3rd party continuing puzzle hot air investment your hole will close keep your whole clothes at all times minus your original opinion stands and my initial original opinion we'll continue to see him now and long after we're gone it's to perceive overturn it's a novel as yours mine is the dominant one yours is there in a scissor 1 lose your hallWell you can't be doing that you can't be elected opposed you can't be reblogging a post you can't be posting posts you cannot be reposed with posts and you definitely cannot be named in the necessity you're an umbrella you also surely as hell you cannot be following me or spatting out a difficult shit 3rd part of a territory plus Ohio are blessed for me on any content due with me mine sees doing what you're doing[9:20 PM]I continue doing what you're doing then you're going to have to self adhere yourself to some self term saying that you're saying that you'll have to be by the way and following at all times no excuses is Ann's blood type orvisor isn't enough you are all in or all out all or nothing like a white there is no shades of Gray here no wish washingness no being bothered if like a one moment and not being bothered to fluck in the next moment she was aside answered with itYeah baby nobody I didn't ask for a pint of gallery or a vaccication to be sitting somewhere around behind me in the background glassy and bullshit 3rd part in the drain cuz a hot air and lets me your hole on the clothes keep your hall clothes at all times my initial original opinion stands and my to show original opinion will continue to stand now and long after we're gone it's to proceeds overturning and overall yours mine is the dominant one yours is there your assistant 1 closure hall[9:29 PM]2nd of all you can't be doing that you can't be elected posts you cannot be your beloved and posts you cannot be post and posts you cannot be reposed of hosts India but definitely cannot be under my Internet visitor Ethiopia and Tumblr you also surely use hell cannot be followed me or sputting out additional motion 3rd part of the hearing possible hot air or blast me on any content to do with me mine seize doing what you're doing needley[9:29 PM]If you want to continue doing what you're doing then you're going to have to self adhere yourself to some self term saying conditions I have self set in Africa that you'll have to be a body by and following at all times notes uses eaves and buds of a caross anything we went on you are all in or all out all or nothing black or white there is no shades of Gray here no wicked wickedness no being bothered if you like a one moment and not being bothered if you're looking at the next moment she's aside and stick with it[9:30 PM]Believe all evidence of absolute zero tolerance policy for teenagers that you've been quiet Internet good karma earns good karma and bad karma or is that karma what comes around goes around and my girls run comes around therefore I eagerly wake yourBe it a nest for the peanut gallery or the basket case to be blasting somewhere in the background blasting a bullshit 3rd part of Terry puzzle hot air and blessing me you're a hole when I close keep your hot clothes at all times mindful of original opinion stands in mind the show original opinion we'll continue to stand now and I'm not going to have to receive overturn as an overall source my name is the domino one yours is the resource of 1 lose your house[10:17 PM]Kind of all you can't be doing that you can't be your luck and posts you can't be your blogging posts you cannot be reposed and posts and you definitely cannot be any better Internet vicinity here on Tumblr you also surely as here cannot be followed me or spatty out it is a bullshit 3rd button wintering plus hot air or last week on any con that needs me mine see you soon[10:18 PM]What are you doing what you're doing then you're going to have If you want to continue doing what you're doing then you're going to have to self care yourself because himself terms saying conditions I yourself said I'll hurt you that'll hurt no pieces gives hands buds a progressive progress and if we do not you are all in or all out all or nothing black or white there is no shades of Gray here no wish wish wish wish wish wasn't this no being bothered if you like a one moment and I'll think bother to look at the next moment she was aside Anne's debut of it[10:18 PM]Leave all evidence of an absolute zero tolerance policy continue to let you be quiet in a minutearns the karma and I karma earns like karma but comes around and what goes around and what goes around therefore I eagerly wait your fly

AND SOMEONE GOT MY CONVO MESSAGES TOO BUT ITS CHILL COS THAY WARNED ME BUT STILL 

so if i swich accounts u know why 

[riddhicorporation]

Dazzling Decisions: Choosing Lab-Created Diamonds for Your Wedding

When it comes to choosing the perfect engagement or wedding ring, many couples find themselves at a crossroads between traditional mined diamonds and their stunning lab-grown counterparts. Lab-created diamonds, often referred to as man-made diamonds, have gained immense popularity in recent years due to their ethical, environmental, and economic advantages. Let’s see why lab-grown diamonds are a brilliant choice for your wedding, and where you can find reputable lab-grown diamond manufacturers and exporters.

What Are Lab-Grown Diamonds?

Lab-grown diamonds, as the name suggests, are created in a controlled environment rather than being mined from the earth. These diamonds possess the same physical, chemical, and optical properties as natural diamonds, making them indistinguishable to the naked eye. They are composed of carbon atoms arranged in a crystal lattice structure, just like their mined counterparts.

The Ethical Advantage

One of the most compelling reasons to opt for lab-grown diamonds is their ethical sourcing. Traditional diamond mining has been associated with unethical practices, including child labor and environmental degradation. By choosing lab-grown diamonds, you can ensure that your symbol of love is free from such negative associations. These diamonds are created in labs, where labor conditions are closely monitored, and their production has a significantly lower impact on the environment.

Eco-Friendly and Sustainable

Lab-grown diamonds are also a sustainable choice. The mining of natural diamonds is an energy-intensive process that often involves extensive land disruption. In contrast, creating lab-grown diamonds requires less energy and results in significantly lower carbon emissions. Additionally, the reduced land use preserves natural habitats.

Cost-Effective

Weddings can be expensive, and every dollar counts. Lab-grown diamonds tend to be more affordable than their natural counterparts, making it easier for couples to invest in a stunning and ethical engagement or wedding ring without breaking the bank.

Lab-Grown Diamond Manufacturers and Exporters

Now that you’re convinced of the merits of lab-grown diamonds, it’s important to know where to find these dazzling gems. Reputable lab-grown diamond manufacturers and exporters play a crucial role in providing consumers with high-quality options. Here are some tips on how to find them:

Research Online: Start your search online by looking for well-known lab-grown diamond manufacturers and exporters. Browse their websites, read customer reviews, and learn about their processes and certifications.

Certifications: Ensure that the manufacturer you choose complies with industry standards and possesses necessary certifications for ethical and sustainable practices.

Customization Options: Look for manufacturers that offer customization options, allowing you to create a unique and personalized piece of jewelry.

Transparency: Opt for a manufacturer that is transparent about the sourcing and production of their lab-grown diamonds. This transparency builds trust and confidence in your purchase.

Your Dazzling Decision

Your wedding is a special day filled with love and commitment, and the ring you exchange should symbolize those values. Lab-grown diamonds offer a brilliant choice for couples seeking ethical, eco-friendly, and cost-effective options. By choosing lab-grown diamonds, you not only make a stunning fashion statement but also contribute to a more ethical and sustainable jewelry industry.

Make the dazzling decision today to opt for lab-grown diamonds for your wedding, and you’ll not only wear a beautiful gem but also wear your values on your finger.

To buy lab grown diamonds wholesale - contact best HPHT Lab Grown Diamond Company India - Riddhi Corporation LLP